Our Founders assumed the answer was obvious. They didn’t write into the Constitution the definition of family, because it wasn’t even an open question. For them, and for all of us here today, we know the strength of our society rests on the foundation of strong families.

But the issue before us today is that activist judges in Massachusetts are intent on destroying the traditional definition of family.

It’s true that respect for marriage has seen better days. That’s all the more reason not to abandon or radically redefine the God-ordained institution of marriage.

I do want to be very clear: we reject hatred and intolerance. We must treat all our fellow citizens with kindness and civility. But marriage should not be redefined by activist judges. And we won’t let it.

Marriage should remain the union of a man and a woman. We will do whatever it takes to protect, preserve, and strengthen the institution of marriage against activist judges. If that means we must amend the Constitution, we will do it.

The President has announced a bold initiative to promote healthy marriage in the welfare reauthorization bill. We promote home ownership to reduce poverty and stabilize communities. We should do no less for marriage.

EY: He's referring to what Pat Buchanan called faith based pork. 1.5 billion of it. Then doubling funding for the abstinence only - condoms don't work nonsense.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Andrew Sullivan: Bush in Deep Trouble

BUSH IS IN DEEP TROUBLE: I'd say something else. The huge turn-out in New Hampshire; the electability factor for Kerry; the passion of the Dean people: all this shows how thoroughly energized the Democrats are to win back the White House. Bush is in the Rove-Cheney cocoon right now. From the SOTU, it looks like he's going to run on 9/11. Bad, backward-looking idea. His coalition is fracturing; his reach out to Hispanics seems to have hurt him more with the base than won him new votes; his spending has independents deeply concerned; Iraq is still a wild card; prescription drugs pandering hasn't swayed any seniors; the religious right wants him to attack gay couples in the Constitution - which will lose him the center. More worrying: I'm not sure he even knows he's in trouble.

EY: The Republican base is divided on priorities. The push for the Federal Marriage Amendment among the Leviticus crowd has deepened those devisions.

HB 272 goes too far - thousands of families will be discriminated against by the state

January 27, 2004

(Washington) The Ohio legislature has passed, and Governor Robert Taft is considering signing, a bill that would discriminate against gay and lesbian families in Ohio. This bill doesn't just define what marriage means it goes much further by actually writing discrimination into Ohio law.

"Let's be clear, this legislation would permanently deny gay and lesbian state workers the ability to obtain health care, family leave and other benefits available to fellow state workers," said Log Cabin executive director Patrick Guerriero.

"Tearing apart families is neither compassionate nor conservative. We should work to build a stronger economy, have more people covered by health insurance and make all families in Ohio, including gay and lesbian families, stronger and more secure," added Log Cabin Chairman Bill Brownson, of Columbus, Ohio.

Many Ohio businesses, both large and small, are concerned that enacting HB 272 could hurt Ohio's competiveness. "Enlightened corporations will simply choose to locate in other states that treat gay and lesbian families fairly," said Karen Cookston, president of Log Cabin Columbus.

Log Cabin leaders in Ohio have sent a letter to Governor Taft urging him not to sign this discriminatory law. "Our message to the Governor is clear: this legislation is divisive, intolerant and mean-spirited. It is not the kind of message that will help Republicans in November," remarked Brownson.

"Families across Ohio, like most American families, are concerned with accessing health care, the war on terror, and jump starting the economy. Politicians in Columbus and across the nation should stay focused on addressing real issues instead of promoting discrimination against their fellow citizens," concluded Guerriero.

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Log Cabin Republicans is the nation's largest gay Republican organization, with state and local chapters nationwide, a full-time Washington office and a federal political action committee.

Sunday, January 25, 2004

The verdict on the 2004 State of the Union seems to be that President George W. Bush, in vigorously defending the policies of his administration, was appealing directly to his base of conservative American voters. But take a look at that conservative base these days and you'll find a group that is bitterly divided.

While most agree on privatizing social security and cutting income taxes, and members of the Christian Right adore Bush's pledge to "defend the sanctity of marriage," when it comes to the "war on terror" and the Pentagon's burgeoning missions abroad, some other traditional conservatives are becoming increasingly critical of the president and his policies.

"The conservative movement's been hijacked and turned into a globalist, internationalist, open-borders ideology which is not the conservative movement I grew up with," Pat Buchanan complained in September 2002 to The New York Times. In his latest book, Wall Street Journal writer James Bovard calls the USA PATRIOT Act a "government license for tyranny."

In Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil, Bovard writes that after 9/11, "the Bush administration continually broadened the war. The response to attacks by a handful of killers is morphing into a campaign to vanquish all potential enemies of U.S. hegemony and to impose American political values on much of the world."

The "soul of the Patriot Act," writes Bovard, is "blind trust in the arbitrary power of federal agents and federal officials." And Bush is hoodwinking Congress: "The higher Bush's approval ratings rose, the more contempt congressman showed for their oath of officetheir pledge to uphold the Constitution."

On our radio program recently, Bovard took former Bush speechwriter David Frum to task for advocating expanding the war on terror in his recent book, with former assistant secretary of defense, Richard Perle, An End to Evil. Evil is a popular word with the American right, it seems, but there's no agreeing what to do about it.

For years, all those who opposed the New Deal consensus more or less hung togetherbut no longer. The last time broadly defined conservatives were sniping at each other this vigorously, the disaffected broke away from the GOP and created their own partythe Libertarian Party was founded in 1971. A LIB-GOP divide could cost G.W. some critical voters in 2004.

Is the Conservative Coalition cracking up? It's possible. American Conservative magazine recently ran an article, "The Conservative Crack-Up" on their cover.

If the president pushes harder on issues libertarians hate like policing marriage and restricting abortion it will doubtless widen the conservative movement's cracks. So bring it on, as Bush would say. A Constitutional Marriage Amendment may be just what Democrats need not to shore up heterosexual couplingbut to bring down the conservative's cold war marriage.

Dean Zimmerman announced today at the Fifth District Green Party
meeting that he is now planning to vote in favor of the Access
Project. I asked him both publicly and privately why he had reversed
his position, and he kept saying that it was a small thing that
"didn't really matter."

I'm hoping that I persuaded a few Greens that it does and that he's
wrong.

He also announced that NO city taxpayer money was being used for this
project, and Natalie Collins had to correct him. Dean just kept
babbling about PRT....